Know Thyself | Part 1

hello and welcome back to the channel my name is nick in the opener video i mentioned that my starting the man of mystery brand was birthed out of this growing curiosity of what it meant to be a man uh within capital m uh this being informed by my faith and revealed to us in the person of christ the god man there's a lot to unpack there but that's not for me to unpack and so my hope is to bring some people along this journey uh who can provide some better insight into what that means because i'm still a student and i'm still learning what that truly means myself so what i want to do now is reintroduce an excerpt from a lecture delivered by father stephen freeman it was a video that i came across a couple of years back and i'll link that in the description so that you can watch it yourself if you want to but

in that lecture he quoted the ancient philosopher pythagoras who wrote that man is the measure of all things father stephen freeman added and the christian response to this is yes but christ is the measure of man so like i've mentioned in videos past there was just something that my inner man craved that my vices could no longer satisfy no strength what my inner men know it needed was virtue you know those seemingly forgotten but very distinct qualities of a man that cannot be bought these are the qualities that are forged by fire you know how uh gold is you know it's refined and processed through the flames and so too with virtue and character in regards to people but it's a process it's a painful process it's an uncomfortable process and it's a mysterious process and it's one that requires you to know thyself or to get to know thyself so that's what i want to discuss in these next series of videos uh you know how do we start to come to terms with uh who we are i've been on the internets a

little bit and you know i do my browsing maybe a little bit too much browsing especially on youtube but there's some ideas out there that are circulating uh there's some ideas and content that are circulating in society and on social media about what it means to be a high value man or an alpha male and uh some of it i can appreciate there's some information that some of these guys who make this sort of content they provide especially young men with some tools and some guidance that may can kick-start their journey to self-actualization but most of it that i've come across is uh goofy and it's quite corny so how tolerable of a person would i be if you and i are having a conversation and i'm constantly telling you and showing you how i've attained this how i did this how i you know how much i've accomplished how much i've done and how much i'm worth and how good i am and all this it sort of reminds me if any of you guys it's one of my favorite movies and i highly recommend it uh it's called the silver linings playbook but in that movie there's a scene where bradley cooper is uh he's playing the role of a man who's just checked out of a mental hospital so he returns home and he's he just met his brother and him and his brother has always been at odds uh since their youth and so he returns home and he's coming out again he's coming out of mental facility and his brother is you know he's well off you know he's doing okay for himself and so they begin to talk you know they see each other for the first time in a long time and they have this discussion whereas brothers going on and on about you know uh you know you lost your wife i just got married you uh you lost your job and my career is study progressing upward and at the

end of that conversation it lasted it was about a 30 second dialogue and at the end of that conversation the only thing that he had left to say was i got nothing but love for you brother so to further illustrate this point i want to start with the question how do we get a better gauge on ourselves when we have everything or when we have nothing and who are we under either circumstance and so i just want to take a moment to share a story with you because the night that this happened this was something that i had to wrestle with this very question and so uh i had just a random night i had just finished up some beers and i like to take me a little walk before i lay down for bed and uh it's a part of my daily workout this is my little daily workout i call it my thinking time and i'm going over it's a sad workout very sad workout because it's not far but any let me get back to the story so i'm taking my walk and as soon as i stepped out i'm about a few paces outside my door and i hear some noise just coming from around the area and i don't pay no attention to it could have been anything and so as i get further down my driveway and uh the noise get a little bit louder and i can finally hear the rum engine and i look down the block about six houses down under a street light there's a man standing leaning on his bike digging through somebody's trash my first judgment right my first judgment was damn i probably need to turn around because he's up to no good he's probably stealing doing something he got no business but uh i needed to complete my sad workout so i continue on and i creep out into the road and as i'm creeping out and heading where i'm going he's finally uh i passed cross and uh as he's riding up i can see a sack hanging from his side by this time i finally got a sense of what was actually taking place during the time i was judging the man and as he's passing me out of guilty out of a guilty conscience i just kind of hey man do you have everything that you need and he turns his bike around he comes up to me he's like man i just went through going through that trash um i actually grew up in the house man i just got out i've been gone for like 28 years but i just got out and i was able to bury my mom but yeah man i was just looking for a meal and man they just threw out some food that wasn't even spoiled yet and so um yeah i got this little dinner but if you have some cash i got a kindle that i'm selling for like thirty dollars i'll even take twenty dollars for it and my broke ass don't have money and so the only thing that i could really offer hey would you like something to drink or some more food or something like that and he says one of the most striking things uh he comes up and he's like no man i don't want to be greedy he just got a meal out of a trash bin and when offered some fresh food no man i'm okay i don't want to be greedy so this is an encounter that i'll never forget and after it took place i had to stop and reflect on it he was content with what he had just found in somebody else's trash can he didn't want to be greedy when offered more he was content with finding what he had just found in someone else's trash can actually i could look at this and just be like me having stepped out drunk i could have looked at this and been like dang he's just uh i mean at least i'm not that guy like him you know i'm i can feel i can feel better about myself i can feel good about the man that i am because i'm not riding on a bike digging through somebody trash can but what he said to me no i'm okay i don't want to be greedy there really laid the true value of the man this not somebody that you would look at and say oh he's an high value guy no uh he's not look it's he's not somebody who would you know i couldn't be that guy but in his response what he had is what i would deem high value actually um humility and gratitude and contentment humility gratitude and contentment these are cardinal virtues for any human being and the christian posture towards this is these are in fact the virtues that give life to a man these are and this is actually what he was designed to be to possess these qualities with no possessions he possessed something much richer so whatever pressure life has put him under in order for him to provide me with this diamond worthy insight that i could look at listen to and look at and see him and not only him but myself me having more than i know and him having very little and really only what he finds so i want to conclude by saying this it's only in the face of humility that we realize that we possess none it's only in the face of virtue that we realize that we possess none uh i can make up present edit and put out there who i you know who i want people to see uh but in truth you know am i really bad what lies behind the filters and under the person

so i wanted to share this story because it was a moment a very recent moment where i was again faced with an encounter to see not only somebody else but myself with an opportunity and that's sort of that's the theme of these videos is to know thyself and it's necessary for especially for those of us who are uh moving making a movement right and you may hear it as being red pill you know if you've been red pill we still got we got to make a movement and when we come to know ourselves and uh as i stated earlier you know sometimes these things can come out if you've been red pill you move into this oh i want to be a high value man or an alpha man and okay there's nothing wrong with those things but some of us may be in my position your position or the guy on the bike's position and they're not glorified positions to be in but that's where we find ourselves and what's important to me i think is we look at our life as it is we maybe practice what this man has showed to me and like i'm sharing with you know so who are we when we don't have everything that everybody else has when we are struggling for from day to day when we're faced with many challenges and trying to get to where we're going this is just the beginning of this series and uh bear with me because i kind of i want to walk through this i said some things and i left them abroad i don't want to speak too much about them but i left them abroad intentionally because i'll keep exploring these things and um you know let me know in the comments how i might improve these videos and you know if there's questions ask me because the structure of how i'll be uploading things and delivering content to y'all is by i'll do these and in the middle between these uploads i may be doing some shorts and putting some things out there just some small bits and pieces just so you can have for your daily uh and it's usually things that have been shared with me that i've came across and uh that i find very helpful so that's what i want to do and at the and let's say at the bottom of these series you'll get podcast episodes you know we'll get back to the man in mystery podcast but i wanted to be able to get on here and just give you guys something consistently that's not so drawn out that's not so long and that i can actually do given my schedule these days so again hop in the comments let me know how i can better improve these videos and if you have any questions let me know follow me on instagram at nicholasnobody and uh don't be afraid to engage because you'll be the person that's a part of the community who can share whatever you know after we've engaged and we've had some q and a's with one another you can bring your friends on you can share this with your friends and whatever you want to do so um but again this is for those of us who are coming to terms with where we are or we may be struggling to come to terms with where we are but that's the beginning point for us and there's always a you know my faith tells us that you know it's uh every day is new and it truly is every day really is new and uh it really is our thoughts around the day our thoughts around ourselves that can better enable us to participate a little bit more fully and lively in the lives that we've been given yeah so until the next one have a good one you